About Ringwood Brewery

Ringwood Brewery was founded by Peter Austin in 1978, a man who is revered as "the father of British Micro-brewing".

Ringwood Brewery's first brewhouse was in a former bakery in the old station yard and to begin with it produced Best Bitter and Fortyniner for a handful of local customers. In late 1979 it started brewing a much stronger ale, Old Thumper, which has since become the flagship brew, especially after it was voted Champion Beer of Britain by Camra in 1988. A year later saw the introduction of XXXX Porter, a dark ruby ale that is available from November till February each year.

In 1986, having outgrown the Minty's yard premises, the brewery moved to its present site, ironically the location of the old Tunks' Brewery which ceased trading in 1821. So far no drawings of this brewery have been traced but it is understood that the brewhouse stood between present brewhouse buildings and the millstream from which brewing water would have been drawn.

In 1989, following the Monopolies and Mergers enquiry into the brewing industry the Government ordered the large brewers to sell off half of the pubs they owned over 2000 i.e. if a brewer had a total of 4000 pubs 1000 of them had to be sold or released from tie. It also introduced in 1990 the Guest Ale policy, which allowed tenants of the large brewers to buy cask ale from a brewer other than their own landlord brewer. This legislation helped transform Ringwood Brewery business and over the next 4 years production rose form 5000 barrels per annum to over 13000.

Although the brewhouse plant was extended in 1989 it could not cope with these larger volumes and early in 1994 work commenced on a new brewhouse. The new plant was designed to produce 120 barrels (4320 gallons) batches, roughly 2.5 times the volume of the old plant and was commissioned just before Christmas. Then early in 1995 the old brewhouse was dismantled to make way for the installation of 4 new 120-barrel fermenters.

At about this time Old Thumper had started to be brewed under license in the US. This was a somewhat unusual move for a small brewery, but it always was an aim to export to the United States and after 2 failures in the mid and late 1980's, licensing seemed a more secure approach, especially as the brewer, Alan Pugsley, was known to Ringwood Brewery. Alan in fact had worked for Ringwood Brewery in the early 1980's before going to the States to become a brewing consultant, finally setting up his own brewery, Shipyard, in Portland, Maine where 'New England' Old Thumper is brewed today.

In 1995 it was decided that a commemorative beer should be brewed for the 50th anniversary of VE Day - True Glory and the logo was voted best commemorative label of the year. In 1997 the Hogshead pubs group asked Ringwood to come up with a summer ale and Boondoggle was born. The name comes from an American expression to describe 'work of little value' as in going off on a jolly or in their case a boondoggle! Although the beer proved extremely popular Hogshead decided against taking it exclusively and in May 1998 it was relaunched as Ringwood's summer beer.

Although the new brewhouse enabled brews of up to 120 barrels per batch the copper also doubled up as a whirlpool (to separate the hops). This made the plant inflexible when two brews a day were needed. It was decided that a new copper fitted with steam coils should be installed. The 12 months project, which included opening the brewhouse roof, was finally completed in March 1999 which was just in time to produce the first batch of 21 Not Out, Ringwood's 21st Anniversary brew.

In 2002 it was decided to add an autumn ale and spring ale to the seasonal range of beers and in September of that year Huffkin was launched. Huffkin takes its name from a Kentish teacake, which is often flavoured with hops especially at the time of harvesting hops in September. The spring ale, Bold Forester was launched in February 2003 and was also bottled in commemoration of the brewery's Silver Jubilee.

Ringwood over the years has also acquired seven pubs; The Inn on the Furlong (Ringwood), The Porterhouse (Bournemouth), the Boot (Weymouth), the Drovers Inn (Gussage All-Saints, Wimborne), the Angel (Poole), the Crown (Winterborne Stickland) and the ,Cartwheel at Whitsbury. The brewery also has its own Brewery Store on site that sells a full range of Ringwood beers as well as a wide selection of wines, cider and merchandise to the general public. These goods including our bottled beers are available online.

Although Ringwood is a relatively small brewery it has built an enviable reputation for the quality of beer and service and is now the leading Free Trade ale brewer in the Solent area.

It is committed to a process of continuous improvement by investing in plant and equipment as well as in the training and development of staff.